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Senators News & Notes

The rookie tournament is in the books and camp starts tomorrow. I saw some of the former, where things went about as expected (the team finished 2-1 with no particularly surprising performances). Afterwards Randy Lee offered praise for everyone and although Nichols see’s some substance in his comments to me it’s all too vague and positive to mean much of anything. Luke Peristy echoes my sentiments in his comments on the rookie tournament:

I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t see what the Sens see here. Harpur looked big, slow, and took bad penalties. He’s probably the player I have the lowest opinion of following the tournament. I’d like to see a Freddie Claesson call-up well before I see a Ben Harpur call-up.

It was not a good showing by Harpur, although for me that was expected so didn’t warrant surprise. We were cheated of seeing Nick Paul in action (injury) or much of Mikael Wikstrand (injured in the first game, as was Buddy Robinson). The training camp roster includes no surprises, although besides Chris Phillips we also won’t see Michael Sdao either (injury). There are more than enough bodies to fill those spaces, although comments from the organisation that guys like Michael Kostka have a chance to make the roster are pretty ridiculous.

Speaking of making the team, the blogosphere was all abuzz because Shane Prince is waiver-eligible. This is something I think was brought up before he was re-signed months ago, but with camp approaching the fan-discussion has heated up–you can read thoughts from Nichols and Ross A on the topic, although given that I think Tim Murray (in Buffalo) will definitely take him if he goes on waivers the odds are extremely high Prince will make the team at least to start the season (something Nichols‘ echoed today). Given that, RIP Matt Puempel starting in Ottawa (which I think is just fine for his development).

Eldon MacDonald offers thoughts on the Sens off-season moves and then offers his own list of the Sens top-ten prospects.

I want to echo what Ryan Lambert said in a preamble for a column on Puck Daddy:

power rankings are usually three things: Bad, wrong, and boring. You typically know just as well as the authors which teams won what games against who and what it all means, so our moving the Red Wings up four spots or whatever really doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t know. Who’s hot, who’s not, who cares?

Amen to that.

Incidentally, I had no idea how big an impact The 6th Sens had on Twitter until they re-Tweeted my last post–I appreciate the love boys.

Ben Blood…was one of the big free agent signings after skating in Norway last season.

I suspect this will be the only time we’ll ever hear this in connection with Blood (former Corey Pronman favourite, lest we forget). That’s for being signed in Finland, btw.

I’ve been playing EA Sports NHL 16, having skipped the previous year’s addition as they’d removed my favourite mode (GM mode). It’s too soon to truly pass a verdict on the game (I hope Varada over at WTYKY does a review–I enjoyed his from two years ago), but I do have a few thoughts:
-the morale concept seems silly–beyond just the idea not really working in this kind of game (IMO), how it’s built-in doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either–I get boosts for things that didn’t happen (scratched players being pleased with their ice time) and can’t really see the benefits of putting any energy into it
-I wish the AI wouldn’t adjust my trade preferences once I set them, but it does so repeatedly
-speaking of trades, the AI will drub you with terrible offers over and over again unless you explicitly prevent it by narrowing your aforementioned parameters (this includes sending you the exact same offer over and over again despite rejections)
-the draft has improved, but I’m not sure if it has realistic depth yet or if it’s just a continuation of any pick beyond the third round being worthless; they’ve also (from what I can tell) removed the ability to actively invest in drafting accuracy and player development (which makes me sad)
-I think the playoff beards are funny (in a good way)
-I’ve always thought the news feed was a nice touch, but the way content for it is generated can be a little ridiculous (inexplicable things will occur like the feed declaring I was trying to move players I had no intention of moving)

[…] Ryan Lambert wrote a piece that makes some good general points about the Sens attendance (alas, he worships at the cult of Pronman for reasons that remain inexplicable–particularly when we recall Ryan’s comments from a couple of years ago): […]